March 10, 2003

Children, TV, And Violence:

NPR ran an interesting spot this morning about a recent study exploring the links between childhood exposure to violent television and violent behavior later in life. It is one of the only empirical studies of its kind, and the results were compelling:

People who watch violent television as children behave more aggressively even 15 years later ... the effect appeared in both sexes and regardless of how aggressive a person was as a child.
Further, the pattern of later behavior appears to stem from children watching violence used by positive, charismatic characters (such as the Six Million Dollar Man) to do good, rather than antagonists to do evil.

I typically try to debunk this type of conclusion, preferring to believe that other factors have a much stronger influence over human behavior than exposure to media. Having a background in research methodology, however, I can say that this study appears pretty solid.

The Washington Post has a good overview here, and you can read the abstract from the Journal of Developmental Psychology here.

Posted by Avocare at March 10, 2003 08:37 AM
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